Geri's Game is a 1997 American computer-animated short film written and directed by Jan Pinkava and produced by Pixar. It was released 8 years after the release of the 1989 short, Knick Knack, made as a part of an effort to reignite the studio's series of short films, which was put on standby in the early 90s in order to focus efforts on the creation of the studio's first feature film and the first-ever full-length computer animated film, Toy Story. The short, which follows an old man who competes with himself at a game of chess, was Pixar's first short to feature a human being as its main character. A dedicated research and development group worked alongside the filmmakers to devise ways to get around the burdens of animating a human character, with an in-house simulator mimicking the natural movements of clothing on a character. Subdivision surfacing, a modeling technique pioneered by Catmull, was used to give the character natural movement and realistic skin textures. Geri's Game premiered on November 24, 1997, winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film the following year. It was later shown with the theatrical release of Pixar's 2nd feature film, A Bug's Life.
Plot[]
In an empty park during fall, the title character, Geri (voiced by Bob Peterson), is an elderly man who plays a game of chess against himself, "becoming" each of the players in turn by moving to the other side of the chessboard, where he changes his personality and either puts on or takes off his glasses to show this change. As the chess game progresses, it seems as though there are two people playing chess; at one point, the hands of both "opponents" are seen within the frame. Geri's aggressive alter ego soon gains the upper hand over Geri, capturing every one of his pieces except for his king and queen. Just one false move on the king, and his queen is captured and he can't move his king, putting him in check. However, Geri outsmarts himself by faking a heart attack to distract himself and spinning the board around. While his alternate self is still distracted, Geri checkmates what is now his opponent's king. Finding that he is now the one who is losing and realizing what has happened, Geri begrudgingly resigns the game and hands over a set of false dentures as the prize. Geri then puts them into his mouth, chuckling and basking in his victory as he sits by himself, while the camera pulls back to reveal him alone at the chessboard.
Release[]
Geri's Game premiered on November 24, 1997 at Laemmle's Monica Theater in Santa Monica, California. It was also attached to the theatrical release of A Bug's Life in 1998 and subsequently featured on that film's VHS and DVD releases. A VHS recording of the short film was released in 1998, but it was not widely available and is considered rare. Geri's Game is on the DVD Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1. It was also released on super-8 film with stereo sound.
Poll[]
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External links[]
- Official website
- Geri's Game on IMDb
- Geri's Game at the TCM Movie Database
- Geri's Game at The Big Cartoon DataBase
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